Greater New Orleans

Melissa Harris-Perry and James Perry create a polished family home

When James Perry first laid eyes on the sidehall shotgun in Esplanade Ridge, it was love at first sight. But it was another story altogether when he first brought his future wife to see the place during Mardi Gras 2009.

"I took one look at it and told him we needed to get a hotel room instead," said Melissa Harris-Perry, who was living in New Jersey and teaching at Princeton University at the time. "He had told me he was in the process of renovating, but what he didn't say was that the house was a construction site."

For Harris-Perry, "renovating" meant choosing new cabinets or the perfect hardware for a new kitchen, as she had been doing at her house in Princeton. It didn't mean painting everything, installing two new bathrooms, refinishing the floors, replacing a rotten porch or excavating a garden -- all on the to-do list at Perry's house.

But love, it seems, is thicker than sawdust. Instead of torpedoing the budding romance between the couple, the unsettling introduction to Perry's house may have actually strengthened it.

"Once I got over the shock, I realized that it meant James wasn't afraid to make a commitment," Harris-Perry said. "If he could take on a project like that and stick with it, it was a good sign."

The couple wed in October 2010 and by Thanksgiving, Harris-Perry was en route to New Orleans and the Esplanade Ridge house with her daughter, Parker, 9; Parker's "Grammy," Diana Gray; a dog named Pebbles and two cats.

Perry admits that their impending arrival put the heat on a renovation that had been years in the making.

"I was renovating the house after I bought it in 2002, before (Hurricane) Katrina, and then the storm added more to the work list," said Perry, executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center and a homeowner whose post-Katrina trials were profiled in The Times-Picayune's "Long Road Home" column.

"I'd say things were about 80 percent done by the time I knew Melissa would be leaving Princeton and taking a position at Tulane" University, he said, where she is a professor of political science. "But there was still a long way to go."

Basics first

To create enough privacy for his mother-in-law, Perry installed a wall in the third room from the front, creating a hallway and bedroom.

The only bath in the house was the barely functional one that Perry inherited when he bought the house. Out went its vintage pink tile, in went smart black-and-white tile, and the floor was repaired so that the toilet was no longer at risk of falling through the floor. There was just one nagging problem: The lack of doors.

"Right before I bought the house, someone came in and stripped out all the doors, shutters and mantels," Perry said. "Since it was just me living in the house, having doors didn't really matter much, until Melissa and the family arrived." Bathroom doors were the first to be installed.

Perry and Harris-Perry picked the bold colors for the home's interior together, a project they undertook on Harris-Perry's first visit at Mardi Gras three years ago.

"It was really only our third date, but that weekend James said, 'Come on. I want you to help me pick out colors for the house,'" Harris-Perry said.

"I liked that he was bringing me in on his project, but I had no idea at the time that what I was doing was picking out colors for my future house."

Furniture came next. Perry had almost none, and Harris-Perry had too much -- all oversized to fit in her spacious Princeton home.

"We may have been the first newlyweds who, instead of having a shower to get things for their house, had a wedding yard sale to get rid of everything," Harris-Perry said. "After that, we went out and bought the furniture we wanted for the house."

Master bath visions

Painting, wall construction, bath overhaul and redecorating were all crucial to making Perry's bachelor roost into a family home, but the final necessity was creating a master bath.

Perry had long intended to convert a large closet off the master bedroom into the bath of his dreams, complete with a five-person Jacuzzi, but the room was still a cluttered closet when Harris-Perry arrived.

"James and I had been on a trip to New York where I was attending a meeting for one of the boards I serve on, and they put us up at a super-swanky hotel," Harris-Perry recalled. "When James asked me what my dream design would be for our master bath, I said I wanted one just like the one at the hotel."

What Harris-Perry didn't realize was that the bath in New York was lined with Carrara marble slabs from top to bottom, a material that wasn't exactly in Perry's budget.

"I asked her if she realized it was marble, and she just said, 'OK! That sounds great!' She didn't have a clue how expensive it would be," Perry said.

The bath -- now tiled in marble and complete with the crystal chandelier Harris-Perry had coveted -- was a huge hit when Harris-Perry saw it for the first time, and a far cry from Perry's original vision for the space.

Gathering spots

Both Perry and Harris-Perry have demanding work schedules. Now that Harris-Perry is host of her own eponymous MSNBC show, she is away in New York on weekends. That leaves weekday mornings for the family to be able to get together for a meal.

"I put on my running clothes, and Parker gets ready for school, then we come to the kitchen and sit at the island while James cooks breakfast for us," Harris-Perry said. "Then we're off -- Parker to McGehee's and I go to City Park for a jog. By the time I get back to the house, James is gone."

Harris-Perry says she has come to love the house and especially the Esplanade Ridge neighborhood, where she has gotten to know neighbors and appreciate the architecture. Harris-Perry says that both the backyard and front porch are ideal places to spend leisure time, as long as you like animals.

"In the back, there is an intergenerational gang of 7th Ward chickens that roam at will, and one very lazy rooster who doesn't start crowing until about 10:15 every morning," Harris-Perry said.

"And one of the dogs from the house across the street likes to get up on the cushions on the front porch and nap. You gotta love this place."